Publication Details
UK: Gollancz, 2007; PB. ISBN: 057507972X
Order it from: Amazon.co.uk.
Ryhope Wood holds ancient secrets and memories from legend and history, both real and imagined, that take on physical form. Known as mythagos, they are unpredictable and dangerous. Ryhope Wood is ancient, sentient, and it has its own agenda: it calls to those who have an aptitude for creating mythagos to constantly refresh itself. And it has its own formidable defences, to keep out those who would bring its mysteries out into the light of day.
The Ryhope Wood Omnibus contains:
In The Hollowing Alex Bradley is a damaged, visionary child, but he has no idea that the distorted creatures of his mind are alive inside nearby Ryhope Wood until he is summoned by the strange forest. Like so many others before him, he disappears into the green depths, but the frightened child’s vivid fantasies are so powerful that the forest itself starts changing.
Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn follows the adventures of Christian Huxley. As a boy he watched his father’s obsession with Ryhope Wood change to madness. He witnessed his mother’s suicide after a horde of questing warriors broke out of the wood and into their home. Now a young man back from the Second World War, he is drawn into the wood, where a series of dangerous quests, a heart-breaking love affair and the most difficult decision of his life lead him to the Gates of Ivory and Horn, the gates of truth and lie.
Robert Holdstock 